


Anything But Sleep (You Rogue!)

by Who_Needs_Reality



Category: Bellarke - Fandom, The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke have a baby, But it's basically fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, I cannot overstate how much fluff this contains, Kid Fic, Think storybook clouds levels of fluff, This verges on fluff without plot except there is a hint of plot, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 13:15:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9273425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Who_Needs_Reality/pseuds/Who_Needs_Reality
Summary: “Bellamy.”“Hi baby girl,” he says when Calliope reaches up to grapple at his face with her hands, apparently intrigued by the scruff of his stubble, “d’you like that?”“Bellamy.”He sighs. “Yes?”“Did...did you wake her up?”He doesn’t respond for a moment, allowing Callie to prod at his lips with doll-sized fingers. He gulps when he sees Clarke lean back to look at him. “Maybe a little.”{Bellamy and Clarke are pretty awesome parents. Except for the part where they can't stop waking their baby up because they miss her}.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In light of all the very Bellarke-friendly promo/baiting we've been getting recently, I felt like writing some celebratory fluff, and domestic baby-raising seemed a pretty solid way to go. I was inspired by a tweet on Jimmy Fallon's hashtags that said something along the lines of "My husband and I keep waking our two-month-old daughter because we miss her."
> 
> Title comes from "Wee Willie Winkie" ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

The first time she catches him, she can’t even be mad. She’s panicked for a moment when she reaches sleepily across the bed only to find empty sheets, and she stumbles into the nursery whisper-shouting “ohmygod what’s wrong?” only to spot Bellamy spin around like a rabbit caught in headlights. 

“Hey,” he says softly. Calliope is wriggling slightly in his arms.

“What’s the matter?” Clarke asks, crossing over to him, “is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, ’s fine,” he sounds a little sheepish as the arm not holding their daughter comes around his wife’s waist to pull her into his side.

She reaches out with one hand to rub gently at the downy hairs on Callie’s head. “How come she woke up?”

“Dunno, I just came into check in on her and, uh...”

“Is she hungry?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Does her diaper need changing?”

“No, I checked.”

“Then why--” she stops and squints at him. Bellamy is peppering little kisses on Callie’s forehead as she waves her fat little fists in delight, and Clarke is almost distracted by the way that makes her heart swell, except that Bellamy is _also_ studiously avoiding eye contact with her.

“Bellamy.”

“Hi baby girl,” he says when Calliope reaches up to grapple at his face with her hands, apparently intrigued by the scruff of his stubble, “d’you like that?”

“ _Bellamy_.”

He sighs. “Yes?”

“Did...did you wake her up?”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, allowing Callie to prod at his lips with doll-sized fingers. He gulps when he sees Clarke lean back to look at him. “Maybe a little.”

She looks harder.

“Yeah I woke her up. I was careful!” he hisses.

“She needs sleep, Bell!”

“I know.”

“It’s really important developmentally!”

“I _know_.”

 “And besides, you _know_ how long she takes to settle down, now we’ll--”

“I missed her,” he mumbles, quickly smothering his expression by blowing a raspberry against the baby’s neck. Callie can’t actually laugh yet, but she seems to thrash enthusiastically.

Clarke feels herself melt against him. It's  _adorable_ okay? She reaches up to scratch her nails gently up and down the back of his neck. Bellamy had to go back to work after paternity leave a couple of days ago, and she knows he hates being away.

“Okay,” she sighs, squeezing his waist.

He glances sideways at her through the curls that fall across his forehead. “Okay?”

“Well, now she’s awake...”

Bellamy’s face breaks into a delighted beam, and he hefts Callie in the air, her legs dangling. She blinks down at her parents, and it’s about half a second before Clarke cracks and reaches for her daughter.

“Okay baby, you wanna come to mumma?”

“She’s not going to turn her back on her father.”

“That’s because she hasn’t gained full control of her spine yet,” Clarke says as she takes the baby gently.

They play with Callie for about half an hour before her eyelids start to droop and Bellamy eventually relents and decides to lay her back down. They croon over the crib for what feels like hours, Clarke humming a soft lullaby under her breath, Bellamy running his finger slowly up and down the curve of the baby’s cheek.

“We _made_ that, Bell,” Clarke whispers, leaning her head on his shoulder as they stare in awe at the rise-and-fall of Calliope’s little chest, “we _made_ her.” Tears are starting to prick at the corners of her eyes and she nuzzles her face in the crook of his neck.

“I know, babe,” he kisses the top of her head, “we really did.”

***

“It’ll be _fine_ , Clarke,” he says, before turning back to the highchair. “Open up, Callie! The airplanes coming, see? _Neeee-awwww_.” He zig-zags the spoon through the air, aiming for a dramatic sweep into the mouth. Of course, Calliope chooses to clamp her mouth shut at the last moment, thereby allowing baby mush to splatter across her face. “Don’t give me that look,” he says, reaching up to wipe her clean with a hand towel, “this wouldn’t happen if you’d keep your mouth open. You can’t actually ingest food via osmosis.”

“That sounded nothing like a plane,” Clarke says. She’s still standing in the doorway, arms folded.

“It was an incredibly accurate airplane sound.”

“ _Nuh-uh_. Airplanes go  _zooooom._ ”

“ _Zoom_?” he scoffs, attempting a surprise landing in Callie’s mouth. More splattering. “That’s just a generic machine sound.”

“There’s recognisability in genericness.”

“How would she recognise an airplane?” he demands, “she’s never seen one!”

“She heard them while she was in the womb! I should know--it was _my_ womb.”

Bellamy opens his mouth to protest, then closes it again. “Babe.”

“I’m just saying,” she continues, her feet beginning to tap, “they remember what they hear.”

“You’re stalling.” 

She sticks her bottom lip out, looking petulant. 

He sighs and sets the plastic spoon down as he gets up. Callie makes a whine of protest. “Oh now you want it?” he mutters (not looking round because he knows if he sees his daughter’s huge blue eyes all sad and longing he will literally never leave), crossing the room to grasp his wife gently but firmly by the shoulders.

“Clarke,” his voice is low, soft.

She bites her lip but lets him draw her close, resting her chin on his shoulder and snaking her arms around his waist. 

“It’ll be fine,” he says, rubbing a hand up and down her back. “You gotta go out at some point.”

“I know,” she mumbles, “I just don’t wanna leave her. I’ve never left her before.”

“I mean, she wasn’t _there_ for twenty-eight years...”

She shoves at his chest.

“I’ve got her,” he says, pulling back so he can look her in the eyes. “Go. Have fun with Raven and Octavia. They’ve promised to physically wrestle your phone from you if you try calling every six minutes.”

Behind them, Callie gurgles placidly.

Clarke swallows. “You’ll call me if anything monumental happens?”

He plants a kiss on her forehead. “You _know_ I will. Now scoot.”

Bellamy manages to wrangle her out the door with a brief kiss, before turning back to his daughter.

“Okay little lady,” he sighs, reaching for the towel again, “let’s see how much of this delicious mush you can swallow.”

 

It’s when he’s grading some underclassmen translations that he hears it, the slight whimpering on the baby monitor. It’s probably nothing, but this is Bellamy, so _of course_ he’s at the nursery in seconds, ready to fight whatever it is that disturbed his daughter’s sleep. He deflates instantly when he sees Clarke bent over the crib, tickling at Calliope’s stomach. 

“I see,” he says, his voice low and amused, “it’s not just me then.”

“I’d feel bad,” Clarke says happily, “but I just love her so much.”

He chuckles as he places his hands on Clarke’s shoulders, making faces at a groggy Callie. “When did you get back?”

Clarke tilts her head slightly, giving him better access to nuzzle at her neck. “Like five minutes ago,” she turns momentarily from Callie to nip at his nose slightly, “I was gonna come say hi...”

“I’d be offended, but.” He reaches out to chuck his daughter under the plump folds of her chin, and she gurgles away chirpily.

They get about fifteen minutes of this domestic bliss before she wriggles her nose in the smallest of sniffles and proceeds to throw her head back and  _ball_ until she’s red in the face, making Clarke scrabble with the buttons of her blouse hurrying to feed her. 

***

Abby blinks when the pair of them practically trip through the door. “How was your first day back at work sweetheart?” she asks.

“Um, good,” Clarke says, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet. “The kids liked seeing pictures of Callie.”

“They should,” Bellamy says, his fingers drumming against his leather satchel (yes Clarke has given him shit about being a Classics professor who carries a _satchel_ every day since they met), “she’s incredible.”

Abby feels her lip twitching in amusement as Clarke rolls her eyes at her husband.

“They also wanted to know why she has such a weird name. I had to explain that my husband is dorky and into Ancient Greece.”

He scoffs. “You love her dorky Greek name.”

“Fair point.”

“Thanks for watching her Abby,” Bellamy says.

“It’s always a pleasure, you know I love any excuse to get my hands on her,” she chuckles.

He nods. “Of course, of course. Um,” his eyes dart around the room, “where is she?”

Abby looks in surprise at her son-in-law. “Well, I just put her down for a nap.”

Bellamy and Clarke both sag visibly.

She sighs. “I know you’re anxious about leaving her but she’s fine. And you all need rest, all three of you!”

Their eyes flicker to each other but they both nod.

As soon as Abby leaves, they march to the nursery door but pause outside.

“We should let her sleep,” Clarke says, fingers furling and unfurling on the doorframe. 

“Probably.”

They look at each other. Clarke bites her lip.

Bellamy’s eyes flit to the cot. “We can look, though. Check in on her.”

“Of course.”

Calliope is sleeping in a kind of superman pose, drooling a little in her sleep. The mobile (featuring all twelve figures of the Zodiac, carved by Bellamy and painted by Clarke) sways gently above her. She wears the onesie that Bellamy’s colleagues at the Classics Faculty gave him--it’s pale blue and printed with the words “Infantem loqui offendit meae intelligentiae” printed on it (“It means ‘your baby talk insults my intelligence'." “Are you just rearing our child to _become_ you?”).

“Aww,” Clarke leans over so her hair falls around the side of Callie’s face like a curtain, “she’s like a little  _angel_.”

Bellamy reaches out to stroke the pudgy folds of Calliope’s thigh with one finger. “Babies are so _soft_. They should stay soft forever. Soft and small and adorable.”

“They’d never be able to learn Latin then.”

“Point.”

Clarke snaps first and reaches into the cot to scoop Callie in her arms. She holds her daughter’s warm weight to her chest and rests her cheek on the baby’s head. Bellamy looks at them with an expression so soft and tender it could warm a fair-sized home through winter. He reaches out soundlessly, and Clarke passes the baby to him. He cradles her, still stunned by how _little_ she is against the breadth of his hands.

Apparently, she thinks so too because her unconscious fidgeting escalates into restless wriggling as her blue eyes open, sticky with sleepiness. She makes a cranky whining sound and Bellamy lifts her expertly so she’s resting against his shoulder.

“ _Shh, shh, shh_. ‘Sokay baby, we didn’t mean to wake you. _Shh_ , there you go, Daddy’s got you. Sleep now little lady, there you go.”

While he whispers soothingly, Clarke comes up behind him to pet ever-so-gently at the crown of  Calliope’s head in that way that always makes her drowsy. After about ten minutes of joint effort, Callie settles down, and Bellamy smiles as he feels the swell-and-fall of her stomach against his shoulder as her breathing slows with sleep. 

“Night night baby girl,” Clarke murmurs as he lowers the baby back into the crib, “sleep tight.”

They make their way back to their own bedroom, flopping onto the bed.

“We really gotta stop doing that,” Bellamy says.

“I know,” Clarke sighs. 

***

They do (slowly, reluctantly, and painfully) wean themselves off the habit. It’s hard, and they’re far from _eager_ to let go--Bellamy takes to carrying Callie around in a baby harness instead of a pram, because he says it makes her feel ‘closer’--but they can’t keep disrupting their kid’s sleep cycle forever. At four months, Callie’s started teething, which means she wants to chew on everything (except her teething rings because _of course_ ) from Clarke’s car-keys to Bellamy’s tortoiseshell glasses case, and it also means she’s more irritable and needs more sleep. Their gooey parenting feelings can take a backseat to their practical parenting feelings on this one. And it’s not like there isn’t a certain magic to just _watching_ her sleep, admiring the absolute tranquility and sheer innocence that only a baby can encapsulate. They’re lucky, Clarke reasons as she unlocks the door, to be educators since they get a decent amount of holiday they can use to spend with their daughter. Both of them lost parents growing up, and they’d hate for Calliope to ever feel any kind of absence from them. But still. They miss her. Bellamy was ecstatic to get a day off today, and Clarke had to practically be herded from the house with a cattle-prod when the promise of a day with her adorable baby and (equally adorable) husband lay behind. She smiles as she walks in, and reminds herself to go say hi to Bellamy first because Callie must be sleeping.

“Hey babe,” she says, walking into the bedroom, stopping short when she sees what’s in front of her. Bellamy is asleep on the bed, his glasses askew halfway down his nose, the book of myths he likes to read to Callie from open next to him. And Callie is lying stomach-down on his chest, her whole body visibly rising up and down with Bellamy’s breathing. Clarke’s heart actually _aches_ with love for the pair of them, and she shucks her shoes quietly, crawling carefully onto the bed next to her husband. He stirs when she reaches to pull his glasses off and fold them up, putting them away with the book.

“Hey,” he whispers, tilting his head just slightly so she can kiss him.

“Hi.” She can’t help beaming as she pulls his arm around her.

He smiles softly as they both look at the sleeping baby on his chest. “I figured this was better.”

She nuzzles his cheek. “It is.”

They fall asleep smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> PSA: Genius that I am, I accidentally deleted my tumblr (idk how either just assume I'm a tech dinosaur). I was kingedmundactually, but now my 4yr old blog along with both my side blogs has disappeared forever to the void of the internet. I am, as you can imagine, a bit cheesed off about this. I will probably remake a blog at some point but I will likely hold off for a couple of months as I'm kind of hitting crunch time by way of school. What this means is that I will no longer be able to promo my fics on my blog, so in the interim, I would be willing to give up my first (and likely second) born child if any of you lovely people would share my fics <3 <3 <3
> 
> And as per usual, comments make the world go round x


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